Monthly Archives: August 2018

Earlier this month, we wrote a blog post about how to have a great seasonal website. Today on the blog, we’re going to be covering seasonal marketing tips. Seasonal marketing is a great way to get into the new season or holiday, and it has been shown to increase sales.

Here are some important things to make note of before you begin: – When it comes to seasonal marketing, timing is very important. Allot yourself a few months to plan and prep. The best ideas won’t come to you if you’re feeling crunchtime. – Don’t feel pressured to have a seasonal marketing campaign for every season and holiday. Think about what is most relevant to your business. What times of the year does your company get the most business?

Now on to the tips:

Create Valuable Seasonal Content

We think it’s safe to say the reason we started our businesses was to be of service. Regardless if you’re a B2C or a B2B, you want your business to offer something valuable to your customers and clients. A great way to accomplish this is to create helpful content for your targeted audience.

For example, if you’re an interior designer, you might create a piece of content where you give away your favorite staging tips. If you’re a dentist, you could share the best ways to clean your teeth after Halloween.

If you’re an employment/human resources attorney, you could share your tips on how to cultivate a better work environment near Labor Day.

Run A Social Media Campaign

Everybody is on social media these days, so what better place to promote your business than with a social media campaign? If you’re a B2C business, you may want to consider promoting your products through Facebook Ads, and if you’re a B2B, by utilizing LinkedIn Ads.

Do A Photo Contest

Photo contests are a fun way to engage your audience. Keep the rules simple, create a landing page where you can collect people’s information, and have a prize that people will want to win. Some ideas you could do is a Halloween costume contest or an ugly sweater contest in December. You could give away a product related to your industry (e.g., an IT company could give away a computer, a boutique could give away a gift card, etc.), or offer one of your services for free.

Come Up With a Hashtag

Connect with your audience by coming up with a clever hashtag. Going back to our previous tip, you could use the hashtag as a way to see who is participating in your contest instead of creating a separate landing page. Hashtags are also a good way to introduce new people to your business and your campaigns. When a person sees one of their friends participating in your contest or campaign, it may give them the incentive to join in too.

Direct Mail Promos

In today’s digital world, it’s easy to forget about this last tip, but direct mail is still an effective way to remind people of your business. Design a postcard that gets people into the spirit and has a clear call-to-action.

If you need help with your seasonal marketing, give us a call. We offer social media, blogging, photography, digital marketing campaigns, and graphic print work.

If you do search engine optimization (SEO) for your business, then you’ve probably discovered that it’s constantly changing. It can be hard to keep up with what’s going on and there are a lot of companies out there claiming they’ve got the shortcut strategies (aka blackhat techniques) that can help you rank well. Today we’d like to debunk the most common SEO myths to bring you some clarity and help you properly optimize your site.

Myth #1: More web pages will help rank better.

At Sperling Interactive, we always encourage our clients to blog. Blogging does, after all, give you more web pages and chances to rank for relevant keywords. But it’s important to note that your blog posts these days need to be of rich content and not thin content. Google is the most used search engine in the world and, as such, it wants to show its users the most relevant and rich content possible. Check out our blog post on how to optimize your blog posts.

Myth #2: Link building doesn’t matter.

Link building has changed a lot since SEO was invented. It used to be that you could get backlinks by putting your business’s information into business directories. Today, Google and other search engines value those links a lot less. To create effective links these days, you want to reach out to other industry publications and ask if you can be linked on their site. A good way to go about this is to ask them to a link a blog post you wrote to a similar blog post they have up on their site.

Myth #3: Having a mobile-friendly site isn’t that important.

If you don’t have a mobile-friendly website already, you should really hop on that now. In March, Google rolled out mobile-first indexing. This means it now prioritizes indexing the mobile version of a website over the desktop version. Google has started doing this due to the large spike in mobile search queries over the last few years.

September is a favorite month for many people. Although it might have been years since you were a student, September may still symbolizes a fresh start for you. With it comes the return of crisp weather, school, and time to prep for the fourth quarter. It’s a month that comes with a lot of material, so here are our favorite September content ideas.

Labor Day

Labor Day is September 3rd this year. Wish your community a Happy Labor Day and take this holiday as a time to talk about your company’s work environment.

Back To School

Use back to school as a time to offer value to students. Share the lessons you learned in school and how students can end up working in your industry. If your targeted audience is students, this is a good time to offer special deals to them.

International Day of Charity

September 5th is International Day of Charity. Has your company donated to a charity or done any volunteer work? If so, why did you do it? Did the people in your company feel a connection to the organization’s mission? Did you want to help out a local charity? Or did you simply just want to do something good with your time? Unpack your reason(s) why on this day.

First Day of Fall

Fall is one of the more popular seasons out there. Who doesn’t love foliage, pumpkin spice, and sweater weather? Go outside with your camera and take some photos of autumnal sights near your workplace. If you’re a product-based business, be sure to promote your seasonal products, if you have any. If you run a clothing store, put together some outfits with your inventory and post fall Outfits Of The Days (OOTDs). On the first cool day of September, you could take a photo of a white long sleeve shirt, black vest, black pants, and brown boots and say Han Solo season is here!

World Tourism Day

At Sperling Interactive, we’re lucky to be based in a historical and tourist-y city, but even if you don’t work in a city like Salem Massachusetts, you can still participate in World Tourism Day on September 27th. Make a list of your favorite things to do in your city and share it with your audience so they will want to visit. This can also be an awesome opportunity for you to shout out your clients and help them gain some business, too.

Holiday Season

September reminds us that Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the December holidays are all on the horizon. Use the middle-to-end of September to promote any deals or special offers you will have in the last quarter of the year.

Having trouble coming up with content ideas? Contact us today to book a content brainstorm session.

Are you ready for a new site? Here are the best questions to ask a web design and development company to get the best feel for them and to see if they’re the right fit for your business.

What services do you offer?

If you’re having a meeting with an agency, there’s a strong chance they offer more than just web design and development. They probably also offer branding, search engine optimization/search engine marketing, social media, link building, and blogging. At Sperling Interactive, we offer all those services, as well as photography and video. Websites and search engine optimization go hand-in-hand so, after you find out they do SEO, you should then ask them what kind of work the SEO team will do to help optimize the new site. Most sole prioperitors who do web design and develop websites only offer website work, but it’s still worth asking them if they offer any other services.

Do you do custom websites or do you use a template?

Every company is different. Generally speaking, larger agencies do custom websites, but some do offer templates, while still others do a bit of both. Companies that find most of their business through the Internet should opt for a custom website as it will help them stand out among competitors. Templates are a cost-effective solution for businesses that don’t rely so heavily on their online presence.

What is your policy regarding building websites for competitors?

Speaking of competitors, you should also ask the question outlined above. This question is important for two reasons: you can find out if the company

you’re speaking to works with your competitors, and if the company has experience working within your industry.

Do you have any case studies?

This is a must if you want to see if the company will give you a good return on investment. You should find out if the websites this company has built have seen changes in their conversion rates and increased online sales.

What is your website process like?

A company’s website process says a lot about them. It can give you insight into how long the website will take to make, who from the company will be involved in the project (sometimes you can find out the staff’s experience), and how much input you will need to give.

Who will write my content?

Every company is different, just like every business owner’s preference on this question. At Sperling Interactive, we have writers on staff who can write your content for you, if you’d so prefer. These writers have knowledge of SEO so they can ensure the content on your site is optimized.

What support do you offer after my website goes live?

The thing about websites is they’re never truly “done”. There’s always security and maintenance to look after once the site goes live. When you ask this question, you should also ask about hosting. Do they offer hosting? Who do they do hosting with? Read more about the hosting service we use here.

Interested in hiring us to design and develop a website for you? Contact Sperling Interactive today at (978) 304-1730 to schedule an appointment.

Do you run a consumer based business? If so, a great way to drive more people to your website and increase sales is to utilize seasonal web design. Seasonal web design is a digital marketing tool in which your website reflects the current season and/or holiday. Seasonal web design is effective because it can evoke emotion, create personal connections, and help consumers connect with your brand. Who doesn’t get in the festive mood when they see these Christmas themed websites? Here are our tips and tricks on how you can get your customers excited for the new season and your brand!

Have an outdoor time lapse video.

Today video has never been bigger. One of the biggest web design trends right now is video because it’s attention grabbing. We recently built the new website for the Salem Witch Museum. On the homepage of the website is a timelapse of the Salem Witch Museum from the outside. If you revisit their website in the fall, you’ll see the video is slightly different because it will be an autumnal time lapse. And if you return to the website in the winter, the video will show the museum during the winter. We’ve done this to the museum’s website to 1) entice the viewer and 2) to show the museum is open year round and not just in October. A time lapse video is an awesome way to show consumers what your business is up to during each new season.

Redesign your logo for the different holidays/seasons.

If you’re going to embark on seasonal branding, having a seasonal logo is an absolute must. Logos are incredibly important in any business as they are the image people associate with your company. We strongly advise if you’re going to be doing seasonal promotions, to create a new fun, seasonal logos. This will catch people’s eyes and direct them to your site to see your sales. Check out what some of the biggest brands have done to their logos during the holiday season in December.

Add seasonal colors.

Another way to spice things up is to change the colors on your website to the colors of season and/or holiday we’re in. Holidays and colors are very closely tied together. When you see orange and black, your mind immediately thinks of Halloween. And when you hear green and red, you think of Christmas. Using associated colors is another strong visual tactic to catch the attention of your audience.

Upload seasonal photos.

Our last tip is simpler and is something you can do on your own if you’re not much a website wiz. For this last tip, we suggest uploading some seasonal snaps. If you’re from New England, take some photos outside. We’re fortunate we live in area of the world where we receive visible signs when a new season arrives, like snow and foliage. If you have seasonal products, make sure those are uploaded to the homepage to inform your visitors. Consider doing some flat lays with your seasonal products.

If you’re looking to implement a seasonal web design for your business, contact us today! At Sperling Interactive, we have the developers, designers, photographers, and ideas to make your website extra special during each new season.

Learning and undering all the jargon and components for a new hobby or skill is important, especially when it comes to photography. If you really want to get good at taking photos, you must understand all of the parts of your camera. So if you’re novice to photography, check out our quick and easy photography glossary so you can start taking photos like a pro. We’ve also some style lingo too.

Rule of Thirds- Rule of thirds is a photography guideline for when you’re about to compose a photo and you want it to be straight and proportionate. When you’re about to take a photo, you’ll notice a grid of three rows and three columns. Use this to line up the photo.

Bokeh- Bokeh is an aesthetic you can achieve where part of the photo is out of focus. You might recognize bokeh when you see photographs where background lights are blurred out.

Bokeh

Exposure- Exposure deals with how light or dark your image is. A photo that is deemed to dark is considered underexposed and a photo that is too light photo is called overexposed. Flare- The effect that is created when light is reflected into the lens. It’s become popular over the years to add a little bizazz.

Flare

Manual- Manual mode allows you to control the exposure. In manual mode, you choose the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.

Aperture- An aperture is the opening of the lens that allows light to come in and it is expressed through the f-stops. In photography, f-stop numbers are counter-intuitive. The lower the f-stop number, the larger the opening will be and the more light can pass through. The higher the f-stop number, the smaller the opening is and the less light is able to pass through your camera. A low number aperture means the photograph will focus on one thing and blur the rest of the image out. A photograph taken through a high f-stop number is clear and crisp throughout.

Shutter Speed- Shutter speed is the length of time the film or digital sensor in a digital camera is exposed to light. It’s also the amount of time the camera’ shutter is open when taking a camera. The quicker the shutter speed, the darker the image is and the longer the shutter speed the lighter the image is.

ISO- The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive it is to light. The higher the ISO number, the more sensitive it is to light.

If you still have an inkling to learn more about photography, stick around. This fall Sperling Interactive will be hosting a photography workshop for business owners that want to advance their business photography.